The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.

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lamp post

This is a manly post about manly things and manly feelings. When you’re a man you do manly things like grow a beard, fix broken stuff and on occasion light things on fire. Tonights manly situations include a manly chainsaw and manly work outside followed by a manly test.

My friend helped me cut trees tonight to clear out the area where I’ll be building a house. A few hours of intense log cutting, dragging and experimenting with precisely felling trees and we threw in the towel with the failing light. Our hard work had earned us delicious refreshing water from my cooler filled with ice. We parted ways and I stuck around for a bit to enjoy the storm rolling in over the horizon. After a bit I started the drive home, but still feeling thirsty I began to eat ice from my cooler. While enjoying the crunching of the ice between my teeth I began to randomly throw out ice cubes onto the roadway. When they would impact against the ground I could hear them break. I imagined them shattering into hundreds of pieces on the road and sliding to a halt. As my drive continued I came to an area with a paved median about the height of a curb. There were lamp posts periodically dotted along the center and a manly test began to formulate in my brain. As my car whizzed by these lamp posts I devised a test of great courage, one of bravery and most of all a feat of great skill…could I hit one of these lamp posts with an ice cube. I spot checked the distance from the center of the median to my car; about 15 feet. I calculated the speed of my car, 45-50 mph and tried to work out the trajectory at which I should release my frozen projectile. All of this came together in my mind within the matter of a second and I worked out the complexities of the whole equation in the time of a lightening strike. I reeled back and let loose of the cube waiting to see if my calculations were correct. A split second after I let loose I heard a loud bang! With my inattention to the road ahead my car had drifted into the median where the force and speed of its forward motion hurtled it up over the curb with a loud crash or bang. Realizing that I had tied up precious mental faculties that should have been used for driving I laid hands back onto the wheel and jerked it back down into my lane. Still in shock about what had happened and trying to recover I wheeled my head back forward to the road. When out of the corner of my eye I saw the ice cube end its journey and I heard the sound of a faint ding as it hit the lamp post.